What
is community food security?

Community
food security is a condition in which all community residents
obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet
through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance
and social justice.

--Mike Hamm and Anne Bellows

Six Basic Principles of Community Food Security

Community food security represents a comprehensive strategy to
address many of the ills affecting our society and environment
due to an unsustainable and unjust food system. Following are
six basic principles of community food security:

Low Income Food Needs
Like the anti-hunger movement, CFS is focused on meeting the
food needs of low income communities, reducing hunger and
improving individual health.

Broad Goals
CFS addresses a broad range of problems affecting the food
system, community development, and the environment such as
increasing poverty and hunger, disappearing farmland and family
farms, inner city supermarket redlining, rural community disintegration,
rampant suburban sprawl, and air and water pollution from
unsustainable food production and distribution patterns.

Community focus
A CFS approach seeks to build up a community's food resources
to meet its own needs. These resources may include supermarkets,
farmers' markets, gardens, transportation, community-based
food processing ventures, and urban farms to name a few.

Self-reliance/empowerment
Community food security projects emphasize the need to build
individuals' abilities to provide for their food needs. Community
food security seeks to build upon community and individual
assets, rather than focus on their deficiencies. CFS projects
seek to engage community residents in all phases of project
planning, implementation, and evaluation.

Local agriculture
A stable local agricultural base is key to a community responsive
food system. Farmers need increased access to markets that
pay them a decent wage for their labor, and farmland needs
planning protection from suburban development. By building
stronger ties between farmers and consumers, consumers gain
a greater knowledge and appreciation for their food source.